Alleged murderer of Chemistry Institute boss convicted

Ljubljana, 5 December - The Ljubljana District Court found Milko Novič, a former Chemistry Institute employee, guilty of murder of the institute's director Janko Jamnik in December 2014, handing him a prison sentence of 25 years in mid-April, while the prosecution demanded the maximum prison sentence of 30 years. Novič appealed against the verdict and is awaiting the decision in custody. The judge agreed with the prosecution's claim that Novič, who was fired by Jamnik two years earlier, had shot his former boss at a parking lot during the institute's Christmas party out of revenge. The entire trial, which started in September 2015, revolved around expert witnesses and traces of gunpowder on Novič's hands and jacket. The trial was closely monitored by Committee 2014, a rightist group that had rallied around the cause of freeing Democrat (SDS) leader Janez Janša from prison. Novič ran as the SDS's candidate for mayor of Sežana in the 2014 election. In October, another former employee of the Chemistry Institute, who had reportedly also been among the suspects for the Jamnik murder, was arrested over the suspicion that he had plotted a murder of another senior member of the Ljubljana-based research centre, raising suspicion among Novič's supporters that he was Jamnik's murderer.